Ever since the annexation of Crimea, the U.S. has been extremely concerned with possible deployment of nuclear weapons on this territory. Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, has added fuel to the fire by claiming that since Crimea has become part of Russia, it is within Russia’s right as a nuclear power to deploy its weapons wherever it pleases.

From the territories of occupied Abkhazia and annexed Crimea Russia is going to threaten the Black Sea NATO member countries with nuclear

missiles.

But the concern and indignation of the West comes at a massive delay, because nuclear warheads appeared in the Black Sea region in autumn of 2007, when the Russian army stealthily brought several Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile complexes into occupied Abkhazia and concealed them in the Ochamchire region.On the 9th of August 2008, it was from these complexes that three two-ton ballistic missiles were fired at the Georgian city of Poti, their cluster munitions causing numerous casualties among the civilian population. Besides the cluster and high-explosive warheads, missiles utilized by Tochka-U can bear three types of nuclear warheads. This includes the AA-60 warhead with a payload from 10 to 100 kilotons and the AA-86 that can carry up to 200 kilotons, according to reports.

If deployed in Olenievka, the westernmost part of annexed Crimea, a missile launched from Iskander-M can reach even the strategically important Romanian port of Constanta, which is the main transit base of the North Atlantic Alliance’s military consignments in the Black Sea. Fortunately, nuclear missiles were not fired at the Georgian cities during the August war, but the 120 km range of Tochka-U systems deployed in the south of the occupied Abkhazia (at the town of Otobaia, for instance), allows them to easily target northern parts of Turkey, for instance, which is a NATO member.Today Russian nuclear missiles pose even more of a threat to the Black Sea countries because instead of the old and obsolete Tochka-U systems Moscow is going to deploy modern Iskander-M type missile complexes, which have a range of over 500 km.This means that if deployed in Olenievka, the westernmost part of annexed Crimea, a missile launched from Iskander-M can reach even Bucharest, where the USA is planning to deploy a component of the anti-missile defense system not to mention the strategically important Romanian port of Constanta, which is the main transit base of the North Atlantic Alliance’s military consignments in the Black Sea. Bulgaria, another NATO Black Sea country can’t be at ease either because Iskander-M missiles from Sevastopol threaten the seaports of Varna and Burgas, which have identical importance for the North Atlantic Alliance.If these missile complexes are deployed in the south part of the Gali region, they will most likely be able to cover the most of the northeastern part of Turkey, including the city of Erzurum. At last week’s strategic command-and-staff training in Russia, Moscow declared that they are going to deploy Iskander-M in Kaliningrad via big landing crafts. This means that along with three Baltic NATO members – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – Russia will be able to threaten most of Poland, the Czech Republic and even eastern Germany. Unfortunately, it seems that Western European countries notice the menace of Russian missiles only when they threaten their own territories. When Russia used over 20 missile complexes (Tochka, Tochka-U, Iskander-M) against Georgia in August of 2008, nobody in NATO bothered to consider what this means and what consequences might follow.